Author: awmalloyadmin

Today was the worse day I have had in years, the absolute pits. Everything that could go wrong did. I made mistakes, I let someone down, I broke a very expensive thing. I’m glad it’s almost over, bed and a new dawn can’t come quickly enough.

It’s a bit exciting, Andrew comes on Tuesday morning to start building our deck. As I’ve mentioned before part of making it affordable was we had to dig out the dirt underneath to the depth of 30cm to allow for air circulation so the wood won’t rot.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

We got stuck in to it, Rob helping last weekend to get us well and truly started, and now we think we’ve finished. It’s hard to tell from the photo but we’ve dug out an awful lot of dirt – it was level with the top of slab you can see under the brick work. We’ll have to wait and see if it’s okay when Andrew turns up, and if it’s not, well, he may be earning more money than he thought!

The Tigers were playing a practice match against the Saints (my mum’s team) in Shepparton, my home town, on Friday night so it was an opportunity too good to resist for my Tiger boy and I. We packed the car, left the young ones in the good care of Nana Zita and headed up the highway. It was great to have time just with Bert, although I could have done without the two hour of Wiggles tunes to keep him occupied.

The game, as much as it could be with 12 of our top players, was okay but being there with mum and two of my brothers in law was great. Dale brought along his two Tiger boys too so the three young boys had a blast eating lollies, waving inflatable hands and yelling our “Go Tigers” every time the Saints scored. Bert’s highlight was sleeping overnight at Aunty Hellen’s, he is idolising cousin Tom right now and to get to sleep at his place and play with him, well, that was so much better than staying with Dad at Nana’s.

 

We came back on Saturday with a stop for lunch at Seymour and another stop to stave off impending travel sickness for the boy. What amazing curative powers an ice cream has. The gods were smiling on us when we made it home  – Nana Zita came over again to baby sit so Rae and I could have a belated anniversary night out. We took ourselves off to Gold Class to see Watchmen (I loved it, Rae, not so much). We went the whole hog thanks to vouchers and had a three course dinner during the film and a couple of drinks. It really is the only way to go the movies.

Oh my, Oddfellow Peppermints on sale at IGA for $1.99!

I bought all five packets they had on the shelf.

Three in the space of a week, that can’t be good.

Today it was the toaster. Push down toast and outside the safety switch goes pop. Hmmmm. Repeat to make sure and yep, bye bye toaster.

Two days ago it was the bread maker. I was changing a nappy when I heard this almighty crash. I asked Bert what happened and he yelled out “It’s the thing we cook with.”. When I made it out to the kitchen I found one dead bread maker, it had managed to shake itself across the bench and dive on to the floor. That’s one determined bread maker.

But perhaps the greatest loss was last week, or maybe it was the week before, I’m so traumatised I can’t remember. My espresso machine decided it didn’t want to pump out any more water. I called the coffee machine hospital and they said for that model it would be more economical to buy a new machine. Great theory if you have the money to do it. So now I’m reduced to plunging during the day and, for the sake of my wallet, being thankful there is no longer a cafe in walking distance. If I save, save, save I may one day have a new machine and once more I will be able to be happy.

Sigh. They say bad things come in lots of three. I hope that saying isn’t broken too.

Happy Anniversary my love. Three years today. xox

The mistake we made was being thorough. We had to go and check out the display home of the plan we liked instead of just saying yesm build it now. This meant we saw what they had done – added decking out the back, and boy it looked fantastic. Ever since that day it’s been our aim that the first major thing we would do after moving in would be to add a deck, but not just any deck. No, this one is 32 square metres.

Well thanks to sky rocketing material prices the cost of such a deck seemed out of reach until, thanks to some clients finally paying and a little more than expected tax windfall we can just afford one now. That is, if we dig out the ground underneath ourselves and lend a hand lugging some stuff around. Hmmm, deck and a bit of work or no deck at all, so we decided to start digging.

You know what, for a digger I make a great web designer. Rob (cementing his place in the Brother In Law Hall of Fame) came around yesterday and the three of us got stuck in. You missed a sight, me wielding a pick, shoveling a shovel and wheeling a wheel barrow. Of course Rob seemed to do as much as the two of us combined but we’re quietly proud of what we managed to do, and we even got out there again this morning to get more done before we realised our muscles just weren’t up to it. We’ll give ourselves a day off today, maybe tomorrow too, before doing the last bit.

My back is stiff, my arms are like jelly and wrists aching but it feels great. I know I’m not Mr Muscles and this is so far removed from what I do for a living it’s absurd but I do want to be able to sit on my deck in a couple of weeks, raise a toast to Rob and the ATO for helping us along, and know that in a little way I actually helped make it happen.

Hey, anybody out there got a shovel and/or pick? We need to borrow one tomorrow morning as we have to dig up half our backyard. Bad news for our backs, good news for the house.

Today I learnt, thanks to Mr Henry, that toothpaste is good for removing black Sharpie drawings from flooring, walls and bed heads. You only need soap for glass over pictures but nothing seems to work on glossy doors.

Sigh.

Any one else remember Club Hoy? Here’s a video of Not Like That, with an early 90s style warning.They’re helping to lower my blood pressure.

Update

Now I’ve started looking at early 90’s videos I can’t stop. Here’s one of my favourites from way-back-when – Falling Joys, Lock It

I’ve been wanting to bake biscuits for the kids for ages and finally got around to it this afternoon. They are as basic as you could wish for but taste yummy, just ask the kids!